Developers Corner

In Age of Conan and now Warhammer, I keep hearing the following refrain, "I can't wait to get to sieging." Actually I agree with the sentiment. The number one reason I tried Age of Conan was because they advertised seiging. As it turned out I never saw that part of the game due to the way it was implemented. I haven't played Warhammer yet, so maybe it's going to live up to it's promises, but I have little faith.

People want seiging. Why can't we just get sieging and epic battles in an MMORPG out of the box? Why must we grind either materials, experince or both before getting to the thing we bought a game for? Is pain before gain a good way to design a MMORPG now that they are mainstream? People seem to be designing games for early adopters, when the audience has moved on.

May we skip the candy coated shell and get the creamy center please?

No doubt you will catch flak from people who feel you should have to "work" for those features.

But I agree, if the game is going to have some feature it should have it from the beginning.  I could see starting out with smaller seiges and such at the beginning and working your way up to larger more epic ones but it makes no sense to me to say to players "you must play for x amount of time before you get to the interesting part that you bought the game for".

Originally posted by CactusmanX

No doubt you will catch flak from people who feel you should have to "work" for those features.

But I agree, if the game is going to have some feature it should have it from the beginning.  I could see starting out with smaller seiges and such at the beginning and working your way up to larger more epic ones but it makes no sense to me to say to players "you must play for x amount of time before you get to the interesting part that you bought the game for".

 

time sinks are what keep people playing.

You'll be able to participate in the realm war in WAR from a very early level.  Really its not that you can't participate with a level 1 character its more of why would you want to put a level 1 up against a host of level 50 enemies. 

Although WAR has level specific PvP encounters that you can participate in.  There is still a maximum level range.

Originally posted by Jixx

You'll be able to participate in the realm war in WAR from a very early level.  Really its not that you can't participate with a level 1 character its more of why would you want to put a level 1 up against a host of level 50 enemies. 

Although WAR has level specific PvP encounters that you can participate in.  There is still a maximum level range.

Well explained, but here is my problem with that... why base the game around leveling... why not make it a perk instead of an overpowering aspect that the game is based around... seriously.. give me content, i could give a damn about leveling...

I'm know you all know what I mean... skill based.. use it... get a bit better at it... thats the way mmorpgs should be going nowadays.. not this.. time sink/easy to gank someone who just started crap... imho of course.

A game's features should all be present from the very beginning in some form or another.

For example, sieging: in the beginning, you're aligned with some faction and the opposing side attacks where you happen to be. Now you can participate in a siege as a defender. Throw in a few activities that players can do to help out (fight in the front lines, craft stuff, whatever), and you've got that feature covered for newbies. Basically, it's a little taste or a "demo version" of the feature.

Later on, players get to actively siege the other side and eventually create a stronghold which can be attacked and be used as a strategic outpost for allies to launch an offensive. That's the "full version" of the feature.

Reserving features for later on is a horrible design flaw. You get the tutorials and newbie stuff out of the way at the beginning, because having a feature blocked until the middle of the game only makes everyone a newbie until they reach that point.